Three Moments
by Averill-of-Loup
Summary: Prompts for Cassie Clare's TMI, TID, and TDA.
1. Chapter 1

Clary does not realize she has closed her eyes until the heat of his mouth on her neck jolts her back to the moment at hand. His incalescent kisses to her lips are straying to her jaw, her collarbone, the ticklish spot below her ear. She runs her hands over his shoulders, following the jagged map of scars, recognizing them even through the distraction of his soft skin and smooth muscle.

"Jace-" she manages, but a wandering hand on her knee, climbing higher and higher, banishes whatever she had been thinking.

"Mm?" he mumbles the noise against her should.

His fingers are the light touch of rain as he fingers the hem of her shirt.

Clary closes her eyes again against the euphoric crackle of electricity in her veins. Her hands are travelling over his chest, his back, tangling in his hair. She hitches a leg around his and savours the helpless sound she knows is just for her.

Jace's voice is hypnotic as she slides into the empty spot on the bed. He may have en endless supply of energy that does not diminish no matter how many hours he spends sparring, but Clary is soar and fatigued. She sighs deeply as he draws her against the hard plane of his chest.

"Sleepy?" he murmurs in her ear.

"Mmm hm," is her reply. Her eyes are already fluttering closed.

"That's too bad." His thumb kneads her hip just above the elastic of her sleep shorts. His nose nudges the nape of her neck.

"It is," she mumbles. The thrill that surges down her spine when he breathes against her ear is only dimmed slightly by the darkness creeping in at the edges of her vision.

"Do you want to know why?" he asks, with a purposeful lilt to his voice. Something that suggests he is far from sleep.

Clary does not hear why. The rest of Jace's words are drowned out by his warm and her weight and the softness around them.

Clary watches Simon watching Isabelle, in the way one does when they are fascinated by everything they do. Jace knows because it's the way he often looks at Clary. In the lulls in conversation, which their group, now comfortable with each other (there are no awkward exchanges between Clary and Simon about mundane comics, or Alec and Jace and Isabelle about the Clave), moves through like a boat through water, Jace glances at Clary and watches her eyes sharpen when she is aware of the details in an object.

Jace wonders how Clary sees the world. In brighter colours, is his best guess. Sometimes she watches him like he is one of her drawings: frustrating and precious and a part of her.

He knows at certain times she can feel the weight of his gaze on her back; when she sits straighter or her eyes brighten. It makes his heart pound against his ribs that he is part of that.

"Jace?"

He returns to the conversation, mentally berating himself for being so lost in thought while looking, very obviously, he is sure, at Clary.

"Can you convince your girlfriend to go to this party?" Isabelle asks, tapping the toe of a blazing red boot on the corner of the coffee table.

"I don't know. She's pretty stubborn," he says, looking, this time purposefully, at said girlfriend.

She rolls her eyes but grins as she addresses Isabelle. "On the condition you don't dress me, I guess I'll go."

Isabelle's reply is lost on Jace, because he has caught himself counting the shades of red in Clary's hair.

Between them on the couch her hand finds its way to his and she moves imperceptibly closer as he strokes the inside of her wrist. Those centimeters of space between them are what he will remember one day, and the ease with which he could close them.


	2. Fleeting Moments

1. His glasses fall down his nose as he alternately scowls or squints at the painting, and more than once he smudges them with paint and he pushes them back up. Were the painting perched on an easel in front of him, rather than in his sketchbook below, he would regard it only with that intense concentration Emma has seen. The once she often wonders if she has herself when training.

His hand, long-fingered and callused, making short smooth lines in a multitude of colours. The pigments on the canvas seemed to pale to the vividness of his eyes.

Even his rendering of the ocean could not battle his eyes.

Emma wondered what exactly made him the perfect choice for her parabatai.

There were other friends for Emma to have. She could have grown up knowing only Christina. There were other artists; California was full of contemporary artists. There were other boys, at least, according to Emma.

But they did not have his quiet smile. His ability to be silent without being despondent. His tolerance for her mercurial temper. His graceful bearing, even with his height and lanky build Julian must have felt her looking, for he glanced up from his painting and flashes her a crooked smile. In that moment, Emma _hated_ the Shadowhunter Law.

2. Emma tries not to let it happen too often. But she has a tendency to be bored when she has gone too long without fighting, and she can't help but imagine other types of physical contact.

It can begin innocently; their legs tangling on the bed, like they have done since they were children, yet it ends with trembling and broken voices and caresses between breaths.

She imagines lips on cheeks, discarded fabric, fingernails raking shoulder blades.

She images them in the dark night, beneath stars, or trying desperately to stay quiet in his room. Sometimes it is simpler: they stand in the bronze autumn light, in the park, close enough together to keep warm, and she draws her hand up the nape of his neck and tugs him down (because he's still taller than her, and it may always annoy her) so she doesn't have to stay on her toes. Though the moment their lips meet her toes seem unimportant, and it doesn't matter whether she stands on their tips or not.

Julian has to shake her shoulders, often very vigorously, to retrieve her from these fantasies, and to the present moment. When he tilts his head in question, she can only hope he doesn't notice the roughness of her voice as she evades answering with anything other than sarcasm.

3. These moments are fleeting. So she will grasp them with both hands and hold them to her chest. The darkness of her parents' death took permanent residence in her heart, like dust in corners that blows into her face with every harsh gust of wind. There is no reprieve to the absence, to the expectation that they will be there when she wakes or sleeps. It has been years and yet the habit of waiting for them before she finally drifts off sometimes disturbs her sleep patterns.

She does not mention these things to Julian, whether for his sake (he worries about her too much, in her opinion), or for hers (why feel this way more often than she must?), she cannot tell. Yet Julian seems to know. If he does not know the reason for her quiet despondency, it does not matter. He is by her side, distracting her, drawing her attention to his paintings, or coaxing her to spar, without request. He gives no indication of sensing her turmoil, only his constant presence, and his closeness. She could not negotiate the feelings away, if it meant losing these precious times with Julian. Alone, together, when she does not have to voice what she is so accustomed to keeping down, and is understood anyway. These moments are fleeting, and completely worth it.

Were she to demand Julian to arm her, and were he to give her the crossbow she has had for years, she would push it aside and take his hand in hers instead. Were he to ask what she is doing, remind her, "You asked me to arm you," she would reply, "You just did."

**A/N: I will now be taking requests for oneshots set in ANY Shadowhunter series (The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, & The Dark Artifices). Just PM or send me a review with characters and prompts.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	3. Note-Taking

For an anonymous reviewer who asked for some Jordan/Maia. Hope you enjoy!

Werewolves aren't gentle. So it seems ridiculous how gentle Jordan is with her. Even when she's so close and his hands seem to be everywhere and all she wants is now, now, now…

They're tangled in his sheets, her legs tossed over his, his hands lost in her hair, when she brings it up.

"So you don't want me to be gentle?" Jordan asks, lifting his eyebrow.

"That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just wondering why you're so… cautious?"

He contemplates the question while Maia shifts out of the harsh ray of sunlight on her pillow. Mornings at Jordan's don't happen regularly, only when Simon has disappeared for the night. Maia prefers her own home, where the light doesn't invade quite as much. She likes to wake up and wonder what time is it. Lately though she's woken up and been distracted by Jordan who seems to demand her attention even in his sleep. Something about the slope of his shoulder blades and the dip of his back and the softness of his hip-

"Because I don't want to make you feel like I'm forcing you into anything. I know how you are about stuff like that and I- I wouldn't like to think about anyone, even me, trying something you're not cool with."

His voice sounds forced, and all the unease returns to his body, making the darts of his muscles stand out against Maia's softness. She wants to reassure him. She wants to _reassure_ him.

A second later, she's astride him, her hips against his in a way that has him shuddering and watches her with heavy-lidded eyes. She leans down to whisper in his ear and he seems to be struggling to listen above his own sharp breathing.

"What if I want to try it?"

His response is a growl, animalistic, carnal, and it makes her belly burn and her hips strain against his.

Jordan's head falls back and for a moment Maia thinks she has him-

But then thinking takes a back seat because he is above her and inside her and forcing her hard and deep into mattress. It is a slow rhythm and it only increases to an almost equally maddening pace.

"Jordan," she pants.

As his hips move harder, faster, to meet her heartbeat, his lips brush feather-soft over hers.

"So you like it this way?" he asks.

Maia nods desperately and angles herself to take him deeper. He mouths at her collar, her neck, takes her earlobe in his mouth.

"I'll make a note of it."

**AN: I'm still accepting prompts, of any kind. Fluffy ones. Uber-smexy ones. Dark ones. **_**Extremely**_** dark/wrong/why-would-you-write-that ones. Burn-down-the-world ones. Even duck-related ones.**

**Format guidelines: Character and/or ship, prompt**

**Examples: Magnus Bane, handcuffs**

**Simon/Tessa, arsenic & old lace**

**Will/Ducks, love masquerading as hatred**

**Jonathan/any, pyromania + narcissism **

**Church/Chairman Meow, bondage whips and chains**

**Sophie/Cyril, "You're not your brother, but you'll do"**

**As long as they're prompts for Mortal Instruments, Infernal Devices, or Dark Artifices, they are accepted!**

**Go forth and prompt!**


	4. Important

**IMPORTANT AN for anyone who is giving me prompts.**

**You guys are great for reviewing, thanks a lot, but a lot of you are just giving me characters. Add something else, like the examples I gave earlier. Add anything you want, make it wild. The more unique, the better.**

**Keep reviewing and prompting, you guys are great!**


	5. To The Stars

**Forgot to mention sooner, I don't own any of these characters, they all belong to Cassandra Clare.**

**This one is for a guest who requested some Sophie and Gideon. Please enjoy!**

"I blame Will," Tessa says, bouncing Lucie, a small scrap of white determination whose goal now is reaching for the glittering necklace around Sophie's throat.

"It isn't James' fault. He has your stubbornness," Sophie replies.

"But Will insisted on teaching him Welsh, and won't lift a finger to help me when that's all James speaks." Tessa's sigh ruffles Lucie's downy curls as the girl shifts positions to reach inches closer to Sophie. Absently, Tessa pulls her back.

"At least Will isn't teaching him the demon pox song-" The door opens and before Sophie can turn in her chair, a warm weight settles on her shoulder. The only decoration, apart from the scars of long-faded runes – a wedding ring, simple and thin and beautiful – glints in the candlelight.

"I'm sorry for interrupting," Gideon says. "But I should be getting Sophie home early tonight. She's not feeling well lately."

"I'm feeling fine," Sophie tells him, twisting in her chair to properly meet his green eyes. "I'm not a child. It isn't nearly time for bed."

"I was not suggesting you were a child," Gideon says, looking faintly amused. "And you always think you're feeling better when you're clearly not."

Sophie turns back to Tessa, who is watching them in a manner similar to watching James and Lucie squabble over the cat.

Tessa puts down her tea and agrees that it is late, and Lucie's only response is a yawn and burrowing her face into her mother's neck.

When they finally leave, melting into the night in a carriage that Gideon insisted on for even the smallest distances since Sophie first pressed his hand against her stomach.

That same hand rests over the swell of her belly now, running a thumb over it. His gentleness and the benevolent smile he gives it seize Sophie's heart.

"You're counting the days, aren't you?" Sophie says.

In the dim light panning across the carriage's interior, golden streetlamp-light mottled by the falling snow, his eyes shine. "Three months and a little less than a week to go."

"And I will finally be able to _walk_ around the city, instead of being constrained to these stupid horse-drawn-"

"And instead you'll be constrained to a bed," Gideon says. "For a time, just until you recover. Then I promise I will take you anywhere you wish to go."

Sophie weaves her fingers between his, resting lightly over her stomach. He brushes his thumb over her wrists and a spike of heat travels up her arm.

"What if I want to go to the stars?" Sophie asks, breathlessly. His touch is a small glow, a frisson, that builds into sparks. As his hand travels higher and higher, to her shoulder, her collarbone, then lower and lower, tracing the lace on the neck of her gown.

"If it's stars you want," Gideon's hand on her stomach twists her around to face him, his lips bent over hers in a downward tilt and an upward brush. Sophie arches her back, her stomach bumping his chest, arms clamped around his biceps. "You hardly have to wait."

**Thanks for the reviews. Keep 'em coming!**


	6. Milestones

**This is for A-LovesHP, who prompted Will/Tessa, Whispers & anniversaries. You probably imagined something happier than this, so sorry… Hope you like it anyway.**

"Tessa."

Silence.

"Tessa, please say something."

Jem's soft whisper stirs the hair on her neck, makes her skin prickle with goosebumps, but she only turns her head to the side and meets his worried gaze. The moonlight coming in through the windows lends his eyes a blue hue that remind her of someone much farther away. Someone so different and so similar.

She sees his parabatai in his eyes. And the renewed silence feels like sinking.

Sinking.

"I'm sorry," Jem says, holding his hand in hers. Once, his hands were scarred with faded runes, but now they are smooth. There are no marks to remind him of his strength as a warrior, his speed in battle. Of Will.

And there are no marks on her either, to remind her of his tender caresses, his night-deep eyes, his kisses like tinder being stoked into and inferno. Even on the day he died, this day, years ago, she saw him this way. And she was as unmarked then as she is now. No runes. No scars. Nothing to remind her of the milestones in their life together.

Only this day, to remind her of the milestone of his death.

Tessa had sat beside him, holding Lucie in her lap, clutching James' hand, as the even rise and fall of Will's chest slowed. She brushed on hand over his cheek, on his fluttering eyelids, over the bow of his lips, and it was a map she knew well. They were things she loved about him. She loved him. She loves him. As she now loves his parabatai.

But on the anniversary of his death, his presence is as fresh as it was when he lay next to her, sluggish heartbeats finally ceased.

"Tessa." Jem's voice brings her back to the here and now.

"Yes?" Her voice is raw with disuse, broken with sorrow.

"I wish there was something I could do-"

"You can whisper," she suggests quietly. Her throat hurts, though she hasn't cried at all. Perhaps it is the effort of holding in her tears that makes it ache.

"Then I will," he says resolutely, mimicking her volume, softening his voice like the low hum of a cello.

"I'm sorry I do not feel like doing much today…" Tessa begins, feeling guilty that she is lying there, wallowing, while Jem, who was Will's brother and so much more, has lost an equally large part of himself.

"Do not apologize at all," Jem says, shaking his head, tightening his grip on her hand. They lapse into silence again. When Tessa shivers Jem draws the blanket up and around them, and holds her around the waist. His touch is a glowing thing. Incandescent. Growing.

And Tessa craves it.

She moves closer to him, entangling their legs. Their faces are closer, and as they whisper together in the dark, their breath mingles in the space between them.

"What would you say to Will now, if you could speak to him?" Jem asks, with genuine curiousity but also the apprehension that his question will finally draw the tears from her.

Tessa considers her answer. She could tell Will that she loves him. That she always has and always will. That he is a part of her. That he is in her every breath, and her heart beat, and that if her heart's rhythm spoke it would say his name, and not only his parabatai's.

She would speak to him about books. Listen to him criticize and laugh at his sarcasm. She would like to call Jem over to them because the joy in seeing them speak, the strength of their bond, is so true it is sharp.

She would try to recall with him every moment he has made her fall in love with him. From his tenderness to his callousness, from his long nights expressing his affection with kisses and sighs, to his rainy afternoons dripping water all over the carpet and grinning about some new duck-involved escapade in the park.

She would tell him that his death shook her will to live.

She would tell him she loves him.

She would tell him she… she is happy. Because that is what he would want.

And he would smile and draw her near, in the dark so no one could see the deeply loving nature he tried so long to conceal and was never again fully comfortable expressing in public, and tell her that her happiness is his happiness. That he cares only for her heart.

"My heart always was yours," she would say. "It belongs with you. For as long as you will have it." She would place her hand upon Will's chest, over his heart, just as she has done now over Jem's.

And he, like Jem is doing now, would whisper, "I would have it for eternity if I could. But you can have mine even longer."

**Thanks for the prompts and reviews! Keep them coming, and mention this on your twitter or blog or livejournal or whatever to other people. The more prompts the more drabbles!**


	7. The Isabelle Lightwood Experience

**I keep getting requests for Sizzy, but no word prompts or anything. So I just kind of improvised with this one. Here goes:**

"You think I'll be the dark sky so you can be the star? I'll swallow you whole."

― Warsan Shire

"Albino Hedgehogs."

"No."

"Suicidal Snowmen?"

"No, Simon.

"How about 'In This For The Fame'? You know, kind of ironic?"

Isabelle sighs and shifts on the couch to rearrange her legs, which are tossed carelessly over Simon's lap. She once told him that his legs are too bony, and completely uncomfortable, but she refuses to rest them on a pillow instead.

Isabelle's desire for physical proximity is one of the few displays of a need for intimacy that show her vulnerability. So Simon won't mention it.

"Why don't you focus on your music first, then worry about your name. You guys need to focus on your music, anyway."

"Thanks," Simon says drily but the reply is half-hearted. Isabelle isn't malicious, only honest. Simon has always seen her as a star, shining brightly in the darkness, without a filter or a veil. It's something deeper than her beauty, but not quite as deep as her heart. That may as well be hidden by a smoke screen for all she lets people see of it.

Simon throws his head back and closes his eyes against the light of a passing car, shining through the window. It burns red through his eyelids. "Eric thinks it's important. I think he just keeps talking about it because he doesn't know how to have a conversation about music."

When he glances back down, Isabelle's eyes are closed, her chest rising and falling slowly, but she seems alert, even as still as she is. She opens her eyes and sits up, scooting forward until she is almost in his lap, her warmth –_ too warm, so much skin_ – pressed against his side. "What is there to music? It's just notes, isn't it?" She sounds genuinely interested, which is unusual. Simon isn't sure he's heard her evince much interest in anything she considers mundane, ever.

Simon has to turn his head away from her coltish body, her too-red lips, to recall anything even remotely related to music. "It's more than that. Pitch and tempo are all technical stuff. It's about expression, and the way you play, where you put crescendos and-"

"What's a crescendo?" Isabelle asks. She draws a finger up his arm, under the sleeve of his shirt, almost absently, but he's sure she can feel him shiver. After becoming a vampire, Simon realized how many physical reactions have nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with _something else_.

Beneath her skin, Isabelle smells like sunlight, and slightly like vanilla. He remembers kissing her, and she tasted deeper, more sumptuous, more _sinful_, than vanilla.

"It's a buildup, something growing," Simon says, his voice surprisingly steady, but his breathing is suddenly ridiculously loud to him. It sounds obscene in the silence. _And it has nothing to do with Isabelle stroking my arm. Nope. Music just makes me really excited_.

"Is it?" Isabelle's voice comes from right beside his ear, and something soft is pressed to his arm, right around her chest level. Simon feels like he is floating in some in-between space, half awake, half-dreaming. It is similar to when Clary said the word "sex" that one day on the couch, lying beneath him, mouth swollen from kissing. But he had been alert when Clary was beneath him. Now he is heavy and stupid, as though he has fallen asleep in a patch of sunlight.

He feels human. Incredibly human. It aches. It feels like floating.

As he turns to find Isabelle's mouth, kissing her with everything he has, still feeling unpracticed, as he does every time he kisses her, she moves closer to him, curling into his waist, holding his hand and slipping it down to her hip.

Isabelle pulls away, and looks slightly wanting as she breathes, "Crescendos sound cool. But your band name sucks."

Simon tilts his head back, watching her from heavy-lidded eyes. An advantage, he's discovered, of being a vampire, is that he can compete with shadowhunters. Being human, he was incapable of inking himself with any of the runes that adorn Nephilim bodies like exotic jewelry –_ strength, speed, stamina_ But now he has his own strength, his own speed.

And much more stamina.

He kisses Isabelle again, lightly. "I'm open to suggestions."

Isabelle looks at the CD rack on the wall, pretending to contemplate. Her chest pressed against Simon's, heaves with her still-slowing breaths. It isn't doing wonders for his concentration.

In the dark of deepening night, Isabelle's eyes are dark and shining. They are more pupil than iris, and it makes her look feral. Simon half expects her to have fangs of her own.

Isabelle's eye stops and centers on one CD, but Simon does not turn his head to follow her gaze. Her mouth curves at the corners, in a tame smile that has darker promises lurking beneath it. "What about 'Barenaked Ladies'? I'll help with advertising."

**Thanks again for the reviews! I'm having a lot of fun with these!**


	8. Antsy

**Sorry. I hate posting whole chapters for ANs but it's been a week since I got a review or a prompt and I'm kind of antsy. If you guys have anything, I'd love to write. If you guys aren't really interested anymore then that's cool too. I can always move the prompts to livejournal or something. **

**Anyway, keep 'em coming, and happy reading!**


	9. Discoveries

**A guest requested some Will/Tessa, sheets and tattoos. Enjoy!**

"With you intimacy colours my voice, even 'hello' sounds like 'come here'." – Warsan Shire

In the darkness of night, with the light of a few candles, Will feels blind. It may be because his eyes can only adjust to the lack of light so much. Or it may be because when Tessa is beside him, above him, around him, he can only focus on so many senses, and who needs sight when touch and taste are so intoxicating?

But in the morning, in rumpled bed sheets and grey London sunshine, the world feels bright and so real it is almost painful. Tessa's body beside him makes him feel as if he can suddenly see and is discovering the world again.

Will has made many new discoveries in the few weeks since his and Tessa's marriage.

He has discovered her heartbeat, and the feel of it beneath his fingertips, free of the restrictions of chemises and corsets.

He has discovered the flavour of his name in her mouth, and her breath on his tongue.

He has discovered what it is like to kiss her hipbone, plunge his hands into her hair as if it were water, hold the curved flesh of her breast in his palm.

Will sometimes thinks he is turning inside out for her.

On this morning, Tessa moves in her sleep and her arm brushes his. Grey eyes blink open drowsily.

"Morning." Will speaks the words against her jaw.

"It's a cold morning," she says, before pressing herself to him. She is all softness and curves, and Will tucks his arms around her softly, fluidly. "This is better."

She sounds as though she is falling asleep again, but the tickle of a fingernail scratching his ribs betrays her. It feels better than it should.

Will shifts to wrap his legs around hers, and somewhere in the tangle of sheets his knee touches her calf.

"What are you doing?" he asks, and he knows he is smiling when he says it.

Tessa opens her eyes, and while her expression holds lingering fatigue, her eyes have a sleepy deadly light. It makes Will feel heady with anticipation.

Her finger drags over the wire-thin scar of a faded rune. Will has the ones on his abdomen memorized. _Speed_. "I like this one," she says, before she resumes scratching his ribs.

"Why?"

"It's simple, graceful."

"Is it your favourite?"

Tessa smiles against his arm, and when her finger dips lower, to his hipbone, then lower still, Will, half-intrigued, half-something else, looks down at her.

"No. That would be your Dragon of Wales tattoo."

His breath catches as her hand comes around him. In one fluid movement that is the result of his runes and a result of his desperation to be closer to Tessa, Will has her pinned to the mattress beneath him, her wrists caught in his hand, her chest pressed to his.

"And you would like to see it again, I take it?" he says.

Tessa smiles, and while there is heat in it there is also the reflection of Will's own feelings from their first night together. When each discovery he made had compounded into one golden, luminous moment of _pleasure_ and profound contentment that he could not properly recall on his own. He has run out of things to discover since then; Will has come to know every inch of Tessa's body and this realization sometimes makes him delirious with joy. But when they are joined and Tessa's hands are on him, driving him crazy, he does not remember what he discovered. He knows what makes her gasp, what makes her press her thighs together, but he does not remember the arch of her spine or the arc of her navel until his hands are there. Each night, each morning, and each stolen moment just before they are called for lunch and he persuades her into their bedroom, Will makes the same discoveries over and over, and his excitement does not wane. It shows no sign of dissipating.

Now, with Tessa beneath him, he kisses her, and she is supple and fierce, as he remembers, but the words mean nothing until her lips and tongue enforce them.

"I would not mind it," Tessa says, when he pulls back.

"I love you," he says, and it is still as catastrophically strong as the first day he said it to her.

When Will moves closer to her, their mess of bed sheets is trapped between them, and there is much giggling on Tessa's part and animated grumbling on his while he is suspended over her and they together work on releasing his legs.

"I thought there was a rune for grace?" Tessa says when Will almost topples off of her whilst trying to unwrap one of his feet.

Will swears before settling on top of her again. Her hand flutters to his back and presses him forward.

"There is. You'll have to find it though," he says, breathlessly, as she pulls him silkily into her.

Her back arches when he presses forward, and then recedes. "Not yet. I still- I still-"

His hand has ducked beneath the sheets and found a spot that makes her grab his arms and breath in shallow gasps. She says his name once.

"What?" he manages.

"I still have to find that dragon," Tessa says between breaths.

Will brushes his lips against hers. "Take your time." His hand moves again, Tessa bucks and shivers, and he goes blind again. There is only morning light and Tessa's hands and grey eyes looking into him as deeply as a hand reaching into his chest and closing around his heart.

"It's not going anywhere."

**Wow. These are getting a little longer with each chapter. Thanks for the reviews!**


	10. In The Dark

**A while ago a guest asked for some Clace, and I realized it's been a while since I did one for Jace and Clary. They didn't have a prompt so I just kind of when with conversations in the dark… except after a while there wasn't really a conversation… Anyway, enjoy!**

Clary is hovering between fathomless sleep and lucidity when the warm plane of Jace's body against her spine draws her to consciousness in a second.

"Hey," he whispers against her neck.

She turns over to see him but the darkness is so absolute that even her hand in front of her face isn't visible. She imagines where his eyes would be, shining golden, like a lion's.

"What are you doing here?" she asks.

"Most women would be too distracted by my very presence next to them to question my motives," he replies.

"Most women would probably also scream is you came into their rooms and their beds without warning."

"I could leave. I only… It's been too long since we slept together."

It _has_ been too long. Jace has been on patrol almost every night and Clary has been trying to spend more time with Simon and her mother and Luke. Between Jace's shadowhunter duties and her familial ones they've hardly caught more that ten minutes together after sundown in the last week.

The distance between them feels more pronounced now, with Jace so close, so Clary pulls him closer, fitting her curves into the circle of his arms, aligning her chest and hips with his.

"My mom would kill me if she knew you were here," Clary says, but the words are absent of meaning, in the midst of the discovery of Jace's skin, coal-hot, under her fingertips.

A large callused hand finds its way under the hem of her shirt. She sucks in a breath before she continues. "She said absolutely now sleepovers."

Jace's hand ascends to her belly button, her ribs, and higher still. "Well, good thing we're not sleeping, then."

"We have training tomorrow. Maybe we should be."

"You're not doubting my stamina, are you?"

_My own, really_, Clary almost says, but in the dark, in the intimacy of the sheets and the blindness of nighttime, her lips form other words. "What if I am?"

A second hand joins the first, but slips from her stomach to her hip, then slides along her leg, hooking in the hem of her sleep shorts.

Jace's voice is all breath and warmth against her temple. "Then I would have to prove you wrong."

Clary is heady with the anticipation, and it is only her harsh breathing that she hears for a long moment.

The darkness is suddenly filled with a high-pitched laugh and the creak of the bed as Clary tries desperately to escape Jace's hands.

"Hm, I didn't think anybody was ticklish _there_," Jace remarks, amused.

"Well now you know, you can _stop_!" Clary squeaks between giggles.

Jace's hands don't linger in _that_ spot any longer, but they finger their way back to places that makes Clary's breath rise and fall like the tide.

"I thought you said your mother would kill you if she found me here? Making noise like that almost makes me suspect you want your mother to come in here and castrate me," Jace says. He chuckles when Clary shifts and shivers, then the sound is swallowed when her fingernails scrape the denim on his thigh.

"Never. What would I do with you then?" she jokes, catching her breath every couple of words. Jace's hand has slipped lower this, instead of higher. She's imagining something else replacing his fingers. And as if he can read her mind, he's sliding her shorts down. His hips pressed against hers is delicious, his breath on her tongue is sumptuous.

"Well, maybe your mother would be kind enough to let _you_ do the punishing instead of her."

"What did you h-have-" breathing, the very idea of drawing a breath, eludes her when Jace's fingers draw away and something else fills the space left behind. He rolls and rocks into her and she wonders belatedly when he took his pants off.

It takes great effort to recall her train of thought. "What did you have in mind?"

"It involves some physical force," he says, into her ear, and he presses into her with renewed strength to emphasize his point. His hair tickles her forehead and his breathing has become as sharp as hers, equal dissonant, frightening, feral noises in the dark.

"Some nudity – you know, purely for humiliation," but even as he says it Jace sounds entertained by the idea. As if he has anything to be humiliated about. Even being as blind as she is right now, Clary could reach out and trace his abs, the lines of muscle in his arms, taut as wires.

She is suddenly incredibly grateful for the dark. Without being able to _see_, Clary reaches an entirely new height of gratification. With only Jace's breath, his fingers and his voice – as rough as sandpaper and smooth as velvet – her senses feel unleashes. Raw and scraped to the bone. Carnal. Full of hunger. She isn't sure which one of them is devouring the other when Jace next speaks:

"And most importantly, it involved some screaming."

**I feel like they're just turning into smutty one-shots so I'll try to make some more emotional ones, unless you guys ask for something else. **

**Thanks for the reviews! Please keep reviewing!**


	11. My Lover's Brother Part I

**AN:** I wrote this for a friend (a non-fanfiction friend) who likes Fraywood. Hope you like this Buzz-girl!

"As if you were on fire from within.

The moon lives in the lining of your skin."

― Pablo Neruda

Since joining the Shadowhunter world, Clary has come to understand people more than ever before. She understands Simon's heart, Isabelle's closed-off nature, Magnus'… Magnus, and she understands Jace as though he were made of glass. Alec had been just as transparent when she met him.

Which is why it's so surprising when, suddenly, she doesn't understand him at all.

She doesn't understand why he stands abruptly and leaves the room when she enters. Or why he refuses to look her in the eye when she asks him a direct question, though she catches him regarding her subtly when he thinks she isn't looking. In these moments the rise and fall of his chest has stopped, as though he is holding his breath. She doesn't understand why he suddenly says her name as often as possible, as though he cannot say it enough.

And she doesn't understand the frisson of heat that strikes her stomach when he darts from the bathroom to his room with only a towel slung low around his hips. Or why the bitter ache that comes with knowing that she is Jace's _sister_ dulls in his presence. Or why she has the urge the run from the room when his cobalt eyes land on her face. She has hardly ever wanted to run away before, and never so strongly.

When Clary stumbles into him in the darkened hallway of the Institute after visiting Jace, she clutches her sketchbook in front of herself like a shield. But his eyes, striking in the blue hued moonlight, pierce her like a hot spike anyway. So she focuses on his chest instead, hidden beneath a grey t-shirt, when she apologizes.

"Sorry, Alec," she mutters. She steps aside, only to meet his chest again. When she glances up, he's blushing, but he looks amused. When she sidesteps a second time, and he does the same, she realizes they're both blushing.

_This is ridiculous_, she thinks, and, without thinking, grabs his elbow. She can barely hear the hitch in his breath over the catch in her own. But she stumbles around him and releases his arm.

"Are you going home, now?" Alec asks, with genuine curiousity. It surprises her, as she has only ever heard various degrees of wariness or trepidation in his voice when he addresses her.

"Yeah. My mom is probably going to kill me for being here so late," Clary says, and hefts her bag over her shoulder. She wishes she wasn't so tiny, so her bag wouldn't slide off her shoulder, and she wouldn't have to adjust it and draw Alec's eyes to her shoulders, bare in a tank top…

Her heartbeat thunders, spontaneously blooming inside her chest and beating a tattoo against her ribs. She imagines the midnight flower in her chest, opening its petals like the birth of a star. Normally, the image conjures the memory of her first kiss with Jace. Before they had been cursed with the same blood and the same burning desire. But those memories die under Alec's stare. She shivers, though she feels almost uncomfortably warm.

"Are you cold?" he asks, attentive to the slightest detail.

"No-" Clary begins to say, but something, _the _something, stops her tongue from forming the words. "A little. Do you have a sweater or something I could borrow?"

His eyes go wide with surprise, but he nods and leads her down the hall, past Jace's room, from which she emerged just a few minutes (really, only minutes?) ago. They are both quiet, and as much as she tries to deny it, Clary feels almost guilty, following Alec to his bedroom and trying not to notice the movement of his muscles beneath his shirt. When he opens the door, revealing a white room with a bookcase, a nightstand, a _bed_, she firsts her hand so tightly at her side that her nails leave a line of red crescents on her palm.

"Come in," Alec says, and it is not just his words, but his voice, that are an invitation.

Biting her lip, Clary steps inside to accept.

TBC…

**AN:** I think, because I'm really thankful to my friend for supporting me in my writing in general, that this will be a 2 part prompt. Also, I kind of really love Fraywood.

If you guys want quotes and/or music to go with a prompt, let me know!


	12. Dying Young

**A/N: **I lied about that last one. Not a 2-part Fraywood prompt, though I don't doubt I will write another Fraywood prompt. But some of you have asked for Sizzy, so this is for you.

Eternity. The first time Simon had even mentioned it, Isabelle had silenced him with a kiss as fierce as a knife blade. Perhaps it's the strong smell of Nephilim blood that makes her kisses feel as sharp as steel, biting and burning.

The first time she had led him to her bed, beneath the covers, then beneath the hem of her shirt, across her white skin, so she opened beneath him like the birth of a star, he'd wondered if eternity would mean anything if it passed in such a timeless way as this.

In the daylight, walking beside Isabelle to the Institute, holding her hand (which was a long and hard-fought battle, to be able to hold it without incident), passing a cemetery, he gave his death a fleeting glance. Life without his friends or family, without Clary, Isabelle, Rebecca, his mother… it hadn't sunken in yet. It was suspended in some state above his skin, touchable but not penetrating.

Clary had almost broken down crying when he'd mentioned it once, and Isabelle either distracted him with kisses or arguing. There was hardly anyone else to discuss it with. Magnus might have counted, but he treated everything as though it were ephemeral, as though he was simply waiting for it to wither or die, betray him, and to move on. Simon did not want that. He wanted to wake up and feel time pass the way he felt it sluggishly when he was a teenager. He did not want to close his eyes and have a decade, or a century, pass by.

When he told Isabelle, she had shrugged, but her voice sounded tight when she replied, "So live that way. No one says you have to live like Magnus. That's just asking for trouble." She shrugged again. "I'm don't really know anything about it. I'm transient too."

Simon frowned. Isabelle, star-bright, fire-hot Isabelle, did not seem temporary at all. "That's not true."

"It is. Nephilim and humans are alike, in that way. We live, we die. And other things are more temporary than our lives. Strength, wit, beauty. Those all fade with age. Before we're dead. Which is kind of tragic, if you think about it. Maybe it's good Shadowhunters die young. Who would want to live that long being ugly?"

Simon fell silent again. Isabelle was a testament to many things in the Shadowhunter world, including a short lifespan. Though after witnessing her defeating a demon in seven-inch heels, Simon was not so sure. But she was strong, she was beautiful, she would possibly die young, in battle.

But she had strong family ties. It was the one thing in the world that did not discriminate by race. Downworlders, mundanes, Shadowhunters, all seemed to have a capacity to love with a stifling, crippling force.

Simon thought the conversation was over but later, much later, in his and Kyle's apartment, tangled in his sheet, as interwoven as codependent vines, Isabelle brought it up.

"That isn't going to happen to you, you know," she said quietly, as she stroked his chest with a long red fingernail.

"What?" Simon twisted his head to look at her, but only saw the top of her head, her red cheeks.

"Magnus was born immortal. He's never known what it was like to be mortal. You remember, and even if you forget," she paused. Her hand stilled, then resume, tracing his collarbone, then his bicep. "Even if you forget, you'll always have something to help you remember being mortal. Being transient. You won't toss things away, or think one sunset isn't precious just because there will be another tomorrow. You'll remember the important things, and because you're _you_, they'll still be important."

Simon did not know what to say, how to respond, with his fear, or with the delicate fission of hope set off in his chest. Instead he shivered as she hitched a leg up around his hip and pulled him closer to her.

"Does this mean I get something to remember you bye?" He asked. It wasn't romantic, or happy, and he said it teasingly, but he meant it. Clary had a permanent imprint on him, as his first love, his first girlfriend, a part of him. Isabelle had multiple impressions on him as well, like bruises. But he wanted a tattoo, something permanent.

"Just this," Isabelle said, tilting her head back to kiss his jaw, his cheek, his lips.

"That's it?" Simon asked, but this time he didn't mean it. He was smiling, and he noticed Isabelle smiling too, though she tried to hide it. It made him almost giddy.

"Who knows, maybe I'll need something to remember you bye."

Simon shook his head, then turned them over quickly –_thank you, vampire-speed_ – so she was spread beneath him, mouth rose-bud pink and bitten, hair like spilled ink across his pillow.

"That's unlikely. Breaking up with you doesn't seem like an option, and I doubt I'll be killed. I'll scare them away with my intimidation face."

Isabelle raised an eyebrow. "Thank the angel we don't really have to worry about that. Though it would be kind of sexy if you were scary once in a while."

Simon shrugged. "Apparently I have eternity to work on it."

Isabelle writhed beneath him, wrapping her legs around his hips, pressing her heel into the small of his back, his pelvis into hers. "Well, we don't have eternity for everything else, so hurry up."

**Hope you guys like it. Review with criticism/comments. And next Sizzy one-shot will probably smuttier – warning. Just because someone asked for it.**


	13. A Glimpse Of The Sublime

**AN: Someone requested some Clary/Simon. No prompt so I did the best I could. There's undies and superheroes and lots of teenage hormones.**

"It's about a guy who falls in love with a robot, and she reciprocates his feelings because she's a special experimental kind of robot."

Simon shrugs. "If you want it."

The comic book store is still busy, though the crowd is petering as customers disappear into the rain-darkened street. Clary and Simon stand in front of rows of manga that Simon swears will be imprinted on his eyes for years to come. _Can we leave?_ But Clary is having a hard time deciding between two _completely identical_ – "They're _so_ different, Simon" – comics.

He chose his long ago, paid for them and holds them by his side, but already, after – he checks his watch – _43 minutes_ of looking at manga, the novelty is wearing off.

"Hurry up, Clary," he says.

"Hush. I waited for you," she says, absently.

"Yeah, but it didn't take me almost an hour to choose mine."

"And it was such a _great_ decision."

Simon holds up the comic book, clutches it to his chest with an indignant frown. "Superman is a classic."

Clary may not be able to raise one eyebrow, but her point loses none of its poignancy when she raises both. "He's a man in tights and underwear. On the outside of his tights."

"Which is a classical look," Simon insists. "Besides, there's underwear in your comics."

Clary turns the comic over and over in her hands, gazing at it in a way that suggests Simon's words are hitting a wall and bouncing back. He sighs when she doesn't immediately respond. He's used to her attention being stolen by other thins. Especially art – in any form. It makes it more special when her attention is on him.

"Yeah, but it's lacy manga-girl underwear. It's not made in primary colours."

Simon tries to hold back a laugh, and it comes out as a snort.

Clary shifts, and then she is closer and Simon has a direct view down the front of her shirt, into shadows and curves.

Suddenly it isn't laughter that bubbles up in his chest. His ears feel hot, his throat is dry. Getting out his next words is a struggle. He needs to clear his throat before he opens his mouth. "That's definitely a selling point."

Clary laughs, her chest moves, and _Oh God_, she brushes his chest. _Parts_ of her, brush his chest.

Simon means to stumble back, to look anywhere but down, but his eyes are drawn, like a magnet, to the place that's captured his attention since the first day he saw a bra strap peeking out from under her tank top.

"I'm almost done."

Clary puts away the book in her left hand, then shuffles the books in her right until she is gazing at their front covers. She sighs, heaves her chest. Simon feels the need to readjust his stance. He shifts this way, brushes Clary, and jerks back. She doesn't seem to notice, and Simon silently thanks God.

Clary looks up at him, and her green eyes are vivid and piercing. _Nope, didn't see anything. I'm just riled up because those mangas look really cool_.

"I'm getting the robot one. I like the drawings more."

Simon nods mechanically. "Okay."

He has to endure another movement of Clary's chest as she puts her second choice back on the shelf.

He makes a mental note never to forget what it looks like.

If luck is on his side though, one day he'll see it again. In another way. If he can work up the nerve to say _something_. Then maybe the spectacular view won't be a phenomenon that happens few and far between. The thought makes his heart beat with a familiar ache, the conflict between wild hope and despair.

"Coming?" Clary calls from the cash register.

Simon dispels his thoughts – as best he can since they occupy over 80% of his waking thoughts – and joins her at the counter. Clary smiles at him and he feels a roar of pride in his chest. _She's smiling at me. Because of me. Me._

"Happy with your underwear book?" he asks.

"Oh Simon, don't worry. I'll let you borrow it after me. You can look at the pictures."

Clary accepts the book and the receipt before she turns to face him. She's close, too close. But his eyes stay on her face, though he can almost feel her chest against him, her warmth and softness and-

Simon turns abruptly. "We'll trade. You might like a man in tights." He feels the roughness in his voice and hopes she doesn't hear it too.

Clary's laugh makes him smile, genuinely. But her eyes sparkle in a dangerous, wicked way. It burns into his brain for the rest of the night.


End file.
